His hands trembling, he thumbed through the ledger, scanning it first for the figure, which was easier for him to recognize than the product code. It wasn’t there. He searched again and again one more time, unable to believe Rachel hadn’t recorded it. No wonder she thought we had more than enough funds to cover Ivan’s bill. At the time, Arden hadn’t understood how that could possibly be the case, but since he was used to being the one to make errors and Rachel was so smart, he assumed she’d been right. Now he almost wished he had been the one who’d made the mistake. Rachel was so conscientious about protecting Ivan’s health; she was going to be devastated to learn she’d caused harm to his business. Even worse than being charged an overdraft fee and blemishing their record at the bank was the possibility the hospital might not allow a discount now, since the check had bounced. Arden shut his eyes and prayed, Please, Gott, if it’s not too late, help me think of a solution to prevent that from happening.
“Somebody must have stayed out too late last night,” Rachel said, gently touching his shoulder. “Were you asleep or are you coming down with something?”
“Neh, I—I—I,” he stuttered. “I’m afraid I have something upsetting to discuss with you.” To Arden’s surprise, after telling her about the bank, Rachel smiled.
“Phew. I thought you were going to tell me your mamm was sick. I’ve already covered the deficit. It’s all set for now.”
“Y-you covered it? C-covered it, how?”
Rachel picked at her thumbnail. “I transferred funds from my personal account. I, uh, I’d been saving up for tuition, but, well, my big news was that I decided I don’t want to go back to school, so... I was in a position of being able to cover the deficit.”
As relieved as he was the business wouldn’t be fined and the hospital would be paid on time, Arden felt profoundly disappointed Rachel had tried to hide her mistake like that. Why hadn’t she told him about it? Was she too proud to admit she made an error? “When were you going to kumme clean about this?”
“Kumme clean?” Rachel narrowed her eyes. “You make it sound as if I should be ashamed. I wasn’t trying to deceive you, Arden. I was trying to help you. Sometimes when people struggle with language or reading and writing, they also have challenges with math and I didn’t want you to feel bad. Especially because we were celebra—”
“Whoa!” Arden sputtered. “You are unbelievable! You assume because I have a problem with words, this accounting error has to be my fault, too?”
“Neh, I didn’t assume this was your fault because of anything other than the fact I’ve scrutinized the figures in the ledger a dozen times and everything adds up, so this had to have been an error that occurred before I got here. It couldn’t have been Ivan, since he was ill, so it had to be you.”
“Of all the condescending, self-satisfied, disparaging things you’ve ever said, that takes the cake!” Arden jumped up and stomped halfway across the workshop before he stopped, swiveled around and shouted, “Let me tell you something, lady! Even if I had made an error, I don’t need you to protect me from the truth. I’ve been making errors and living up to the consequences most of my life! Trying to protect me from my own mistakes is not how you treat a man—it’s how you treat a kind. Or someone you pity.”
“I wasn’t going to keep it from you, and I wasn’t being condescending,” Rachel cut in. “I covered the deficit because I care about you and Ivan and your business.”
She tried to say more, but Arden wouldn’t let her. “You want to know the great irony here, Rachel? I actually did think I was the one who made the error. That was my first thought—and apparently, it was your first thought, too. But here’s the kicker—you were the one who made the mistake. It was your fault, not mine, so don’t you dare act as if you were doing me any favors!”
Rachel pulled her chin back, her eyes wide with bewilderment. “My fault?”
“Jah, as hard as that might be for you to accept. You never recorded the payment I made to Knight’s for a surplus shipment of two-by-sixes after I expressly asked you to.”
She shook her head and furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t remember you asking me to do that—”
“Neh, and you didn’t remember to talk to my mamm about keeping her appointment, either. But one thing I can do better than you, Rachel Blank, is remember. You were sitting right there at that desk and I told you we had a delivery from Knight’s and we got a 10 percent discount. I said I wrote out a check but I didn’t record the amount in the ledger yet. Then I said Mrs. McGregor wanted the playhouse completed a week early and I asked you to call our delivery guy and arrange for that. Now do you remember?”
* * *
Parts of what Arden said were vaguely coming back to Rachel, but his tirade was so venomous she could hardly think straight. “I suppose some of that sounds familiar,” she said meekly.
Arden pounced on that, his voice booming through the workshop, “That’s all you have to say for yourself? Not I’m sorry, not I was really wrong?”
“You aren’t giving me a chance! And even if I did apologize right now, you wouldn’t accept it. There’s nothing about your demeanor that suggests you want to work this out—your entire intention is to tell me off. To put me in my place,” she yelled back. “Well, let me tell you something, mister—for someone who’s supposedly so humble, you’re being thoroughly contemptuous!”
“And for someone who’s supposed to be so schmaert, you’re as dense as a brick!” Arden hurled the insult at her. “How did you ever manage to get into an MSN program when you can’t even remember something as simple as telling a patient to go to the dokder?”
Her voice dripping with sarcasm, Rachel sniped, “Gee, Arden, I don’t know. Maybe the Englisch are just more forgiving of my mistakes than the Amish are.”
Arden’s face was so red it was tinged with blue. “Then maybe you should just go back to the Englisch already, because as we’ve all seen, you don’t fit in here!”
“I’d rather fit in with Englischers who are forgiving than Amish hypocrites like you and my bruder and sister-in-law,” Rachel retorted before she spun on her heel and tromped out, slamming the door behind her so hard the building shook.
Chapter Eleven
Too angry to drive and too upset to let Ivan see her in this state, Rachel couldn’t go back into the house, so she marched across the lawn toward the edge of the property. She and her brothers had blazed a trail through the woods leading from their house up a rocky incline to the southern end of the ridge that inspired Serenity Ridge’s name. The path wasn’t as well-worn as when Rachel left, so she found a large stick and hacked away at the spring underbrush, her vision blurred with tears.
How could I have ever imagined I was falling for Arden—or wanted to kiss him! He’s even more critical than Toby, Rachel thought as she progressed deeper into the forest. Even if she’d made a mistake with the bookkeeping, she’d covered the deficit with her own money, so she would have thought he’d be grateful for her help, not pious about her error. She yelped as a black fly bit her upper shoulder; she’d forgotten how much pain those little critters could inflict. That’s one more thing I won’t miss when I go back to Boston.
Recalling Arden saying she didn’t fit in and suggesting she leave now, Rachel shoved a thick tree limb off the path with her heel. Nothing is going to get in the way of where I want to go or what I want to do, she thought. But where and what was that? Just last night she’d imagined not only staying in Serenity Ridge indefinitely but rejoining the Amish and being baptized into the church. She’d even hinted at her plans to Toby over the phone.
He’d begun their conversation apologizing for dating Brianna behind Rachel’s back and then asked if she’d consider seeing him again. Rachel said she’d already forgiven him, but that she wasn’t interested in a relationship; that’s when she let it slip she was contemplating staying in Maine among the Amish permanently.
H
e’d argued, “You can’t live up to your potential there, Rachel.”
“Neh, I can’t live up to your expectations of me here,” she countered. “But I can try to follow Gott’s plan for my life. And that’s what I want more than anything.”
“But you love being a nurse. You’ve said it hundreds of times.”
“I think... I think I love being Amish more. Besides, I can still take care of people in my family and community in an unofficial capacity.”
“You mean without getting paid for it?”
“There are more important things in life than money and prestige, Toby,” Rachel scolded, only half-seriously. She knew Toby had deep faith in God, even if his recent behavior had been less than honest.
“Like what, sticky buns and yumsetta casserole?” he grumbled.
“Exactly!” Rachel laughed, glad they were ending things on a better note the second time around, and saying her intention aloud made her gain confidence she was on the right track—returning to her Amish roots seemed to be what the Lord was leading her to do.
Her own words came back to her now: “I think I love being Amish more.” The problem was, as Arden so cruelly pointed out, the Amish apparently didn’t love her. Or at least, several of the Amish people she cared most about—which until today had included Arden—didn’t want her around.
She slapped her neck, and a fly fell to the ground. A few feet ahead, a tree had fallen across her path, and she didn’t know whether to climb over it or turn around and go back. Where am I anyway? She thought she knew, but now she wasn’t so certain. Once, after she’d gotten lost in the woods as a girl, Colin had told her if it ever happened again, she should sit down and wait to be rescued. Too hot, itchy and tired to continue, Rachel leaned against the fallen tree. Lord, she prayed, please guide my next steps—all of them.
* * *
After a couple of hours, Arden’s temper had cooled enough that he was able to devise a plan so he wouldn’t have to work with Rachel any longer. First chance he got to speak to Ivan alone, he was going to tell him what Rachel had done. Her mistake could have cost their business and their reputation—with the hospital, as well as the bank—too much to allow her to continue managing the paperwork and bookkeeping. As an equal partner, Arden had decided it was time they either hired a temporary Englisch administrative assistant or recruited someone from the Amish community. Who knows, Rachel’s so arrogant this change might offend her so much she’ll decide she’s leaving Serenity Ridge before Ivan recovers. If so, Grace will be able to take care of him now that Mamm is well again...
The more he thought about his plan, the more anxious he became to implement it. He would’ve gone to the house and told Ivan right then if it weren’t that he couldn’t stand the sight of Rachel. As it turned out, Ivan rambled into the workshop right before he left for the day at one o’clock. Arden figured Rachel had already given her brother her skewed version of what occurred.
“Feels gut to be in here again,” Ivan said, inhaling. “Rachel’s concerned about the sawdust irritating my lungs, but I’ve missed the smell. Where is she, anyway?”
Arden scrunched his forehead. “She left here a couple hours ago. I thought she went to the haus.”
“Neh, and her car’s still in the driveway.”
“She must have gone for a walk. She, uh, was kind of upset. She made a pretty big error,” Arden began. He delved into an account of what had transpired with the check for the hospital bill as impartially as he could, sticking to the details and refraining from suggesting they replace Rachel until Ivan had a chance to absorb the gravity of her mistake.
“You think my schweschder was upset she had to use her money to cover our deficit?”
Arden was surprised it didn’t seem to be sinking in. “Neh, she said she had that money available because she decided not to enroll at the university. Besides, we’ll pay her back. I think she was embarrassed she made such a potentially destructive mistake. And I have to confess, I expressed my displeasure she didn’t tell me about it sooner.”
“Jah, that was a big burden for her to bear on her own. I wish she would have told me, too. I suppose since we put her in charge of bookkeeping, she must have felt responsible for straightening it out with the bank manager.”
Arden was dumbfounded; couldn’t Ivan understand how careless Rachel had been? “I think it might be time to find someone else to manage our accounting.”
“I agree. Someone who doesn’t care about me—about us—so much wouldn’t have given up their savings like Rachel did. I’d rather we hire an Englisch stranger than put her in that position. The only thing that puzzles me is how we got so far behind in the first place. You’ve been filling orders day and night, according to Rachel. Have customers been remiss in paying us?”
Arden felt as if he’d been whacked upside his head with a two-by-four. No—a two-by-six. And well he should have, for tearing into Rachel when the very reason she’d had to cover the debt was because of the mistake he’d made first. “I, uh, I’m afraid I, uh, ordered too much cedar. It set us back and I—I—I—I didn’t want to have to pay the return fee, so I accepted the delivery.”
Ivan nodded slowly. “Ah, I see. Well, we all make mistakes, and I’m sure we’ll use the wood and profit from it soon. We’ll work with Rachel to figure out a suitable repayment plan meanwhile.”
“Jah,” Arden said, but in light of Ivan’s grace, he felt so ashamed the word was barely audible.
“Anyway, I came to tell you your schweschder called Rachel’s cell phone from the phone shanty. She tried to call here but kept getting voice mail.”
“I didn’t hear it ring. Is my mamm okay?”
“Jah, but the two of them are making supp to take to Aquilla tomorrow, and they want you to pick up a set of freezable containers.”
“Okay,” Arden agreed. But his feet were leaden as he put away his tools and swept up the sawdust. His heart was heavy, too, with the awareness that every single insult he’d cast at Rachel—that she was condescending, self-satisfied and disparaging—was doubly true about him.
He dropped to his knees on the hard concrete floor. Lord, I’ve been so proud and self-righteous. Please forgive me. Please help me to make amends with Rachel, and for her to forgive me, too. Wherever she is right now, please protect her heart from the rancor of my words.
* * *
By the time Rachel returned home, she had a dozen fly bites on her neck and face, her dress was damp with sweat, and she was parched. She assumed Ivan would be taking his afternoon nap, but instead he threw open the screen door the moment her foot touched the first step.
“Rachel, I’ve been worried sick about you!” His sentiment caused her to break down in tears—at least one person in Serenity Ridge loved her. He insisted she sit on the porch swing while he brought her a glass of water and a cold compress. Sitting beside her, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“I’m smelly,” she apologized, but he drew her closer.
“Arden told me what you did for us. I’m grateful, Rachel—but also sorry you felt so responsible as to take on our debt. I promise we’ll pay you back as quickly as we can.”
While it didn’t surprise her that Ivan had a different response to her actions than Arden did, she wondered what Arden had told him about their heated exchange. “I know you will, but as I said to Arden, I couldn’t think of a better use of my savings than putting the money toward your hospital costs. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“But are you absolutely certain you don’t want to become a nurse practitioner?”
“I’ve never been more certain about a decision in my life—except when Toby asked me to get back together last night and I said neh,” she replied. It’s the decision about whether or not I should stay here I’m confused about.
“He did?”
“Jah, but can we talk more about this later? I need to take a show
er.”
“You do that, and I’ll warm some supp. We’ll have an early supper.”
Rachel groaned. “I don’t know if I can swallow another spoonful of supp. Do you suppose you’d go with me to get pizza tonight?”
“In your car?”
“Jah. I’m too tired to hitch the horse and buggy.”
“In that case, can we go to a fast food drive-through? I’m craving a burger and fries.”
“Oh, and a nice, cold extra-large strawberry shake!”
Later, as they ate their takeout meals in the park, they didn’t talk about anything more serious than old memories—bowling at the Englisch bowling alley, playing volleyball in the backyard, their father’s rich singing voice and their mother’s contagious laugh. Yet these lighthearted remembrances stirred a deep longing within Rachel’s heart, and by the time they got home, she felt so emotionally and physically depleted she actually went to bed before Ivan did.
* * *
Long after he should have been asleep, Arden was mulling over how angry he’d gotten at Rachel. He’d suffered more than his fair share of derision before, but it had never provoked him the way it did when he thought Rachel was scorning him. To think, he’d gone so far as to devise a plan to force her out of her voluntary role in her brother’s business! What if Ivan does propose she relinquish her work in the business? That might be just the impetus she needed to leave early. To go back to Toby. The thought made him shudder.
Whether she gets back together with him or not is beside the point. All I care about is reconciling with her. For as long or short of a time as Rachel had left in Serenity Ridge, Arden wanted their friendship to be like it was before... No, that wasn’t the full truth. He wanted their relationship to be better than it was before: he wanted to admit to Rachel how he felt about her—which was unlike how he’d ever felt about any woman. But he could scarcely admit those feelings to himself, knowing he couldn’t act on them. Not just because Rachel was Englisch, but because he could never get married, never have children. And since that was an impossibility, the best he could hope for was that the rest of his time with Rachel would be as good as their time together up until he’d acted like a genuine dummkopf.
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